Exordia

What is more, if, in the case of a service[*](Public services required of wealthy citizens at their own expense were called λῃτουργίαι; these are to be distinguished from services to which salaries were attached, ὑπηρεσίαι: see Dem. Ex. 52 and note.) due to you they think I am going to leave it to themselves to decide, they are fools. And, perhaps, they both wish and expect it; this I will not do, but if they will allow me, I shall launch the ship and do my duty; otherwise, I shall reveal to you the names of those responsible.[*](Demosthenes, as a member of a group (συντέλεια) responsible for equipping a trireme under the system of Navy-Boards, protests against being assessed more than his equitable share. Apparently, the expenditures were specified in the decrees of the Assembly but the officials were making demands in excess of the specifications. For abuses of the system see Dem. 18.104 and Dem. 21.155. Demosthenes may have been chairman of a Navy-Board at the time; Dem. 21.157.)

In my opinion, men of Athens, no intelligent citizen would deny that it is best of all for the city, preferably at the outset not to do anything inexpedient, but otherwise, that those should be on hand who will object at once. To this must be added, however, that you shall be willing to listen and learn; for nothing is gained by having a man who will give the best counsel unless he shall have people who will listen to him.

Neither would the following suggestion prove unprofitable as the next step, that whatever deceptions anyone shall practise upon you through some well-timed maneuver,[*](Demosthenes in Dem. L. 2.14 claimed to have been condemned, καιρῷ τινὶ ληφθείς, because his name appeared first on the list of those accused of complicity in the affair of Harpalus.) or the late hour of the day or by any other opening, that there should be someone who will scrutinize the measures a second time, when you, being arbiters of your own conduct, are willing to listen, so that of the measures should prove to be such as those assert who then persuaded you, you may put them into effect more wholeheartedly as having passed the test: but if, after all, they are found to be otherwise, that you may halt before going farther. For it would be a shocking thing that those who had failed to choose the best plan should be forced to put the worst into effect, and not have a chance to reconsider and choose from among other alternatives the plan that had stood second.

Now while all other men, I observe, stand ready to submit to an accounting at any time, whenever they are confident that some measure of theirs has been honestly put through,[*](This principle was invoked against Aeschines: Dem. 19.2.) yet these men, on the contrary, resent it if you desire now to reverse your action in matters wherein you have made a mistake, thinking their deception ought to prevail rather than spend time on an inquiry. So, even if the majority of you are perhaps not unaware of pressure on the part of these men, it is still one’s duty, once he has been given the floor, to declare what action he thinks best under the circumstances.

Whatever measure is going to benefit the whole State, men of Athens, I pray that all speakers will propose and you will adopt. I, at any rate, shall say what I have persuaded myself is most to your advantage, asking only this of you—that you neither consider those who urge you to take the field to be for this reason brave, nor those who undertake to oppose them to be for this reason cowards; for the test of speech and the test of action, men of Athens, are not the same; rather we must now show ourselves to have been wise in counsel and later, if in the end this proposal is adopted, display the deeds of courage.